Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University,

in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building actually built by Le Corbusier in the United States, and one of only two in the Americas (the other is the Curutchet House in La Plata, Argentina). Le Corbusier designed it with the collaboration of Chilean architect Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente at his 35 rue de Svres studio; the on-site preparation of the construction plans was handled by the office of Josep Llus Sert, then dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He had formerly worked in Le Corbusier's atelier and had been instrumental in winning him the commission. The building was completed in 1962. The building was made possible by a $1,500,000 donation by the Carpenters, who never met the architect; in the end they had to increase their donation to meet increased building costs. It houses the department of Visual and Environmental Studies of the University, as well as the Harvard Film Archive, the largest collection of 35mm films in New England. It screens a large quantity of independent, international and silent films. Le Corbusier never actually saw the building. He was invited to the opening ceremony, but he declined the invitation on account of his poor health. The French artist Pierre Huyghe explored the creation of the building in his 2004 work This Is Not A Time For Dreaming". Interior studios, galleries, screening rooms, public spaces, the campus all are connected through an architectural promenade that starts from the center of the building. Carpenter Center incorporates architectural elements from previous projects of Corbusier but also its most advanced architectural design. Despite the controversy over the wisdom of placing a building of such modern design in a traditional location, Le Corbusier felt that a building devoted to the visual arts must be an experience of freedom and unbound creativity. A traditional building for the visual arts would have been a contradiction. The Carpenter Center represents Corbusier's attempt to create a "synthesis of the arts," the union of architecture with painting, sculpture, through his innovative design. The building was completed in 1963, made possible by a gift from Alfred St. Vrain Carpenter, and the intent to house the artistic entities of Harvard College under one roof came to fruition in 1968 as the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. The five levels of the building function as open and flexible working spaces for painting, drawing, and sculpture, and the ramp through the heart of the building encourages public circulation and provides views into the studios, making the creative process visible through the building design. The Sert Gallery, at the top of the ramp, features the work of contemporary artists, and the main gallery at street level hosts a variety of exhibitions supporting the curriculum of the Department.
Exhibition galleries are located on the ground level of the building, and in the Sert Gallery on the third floor at the top of the ramp. The Carpenter Center is also home to the Harvard Film Archive.

The Carpenter Center hosts a Thursday night lecture series that brings renowned contemporary artists to Harvard to speak about their work, as well as Visiting Faculty artist talks, BYO: Bring Your OwnVoices of the Contemporary at the Carpenter Center; the Film Theory/History Seminar, and a wide variety of exhibition-related events and film screenings.

The Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) is the curricular home of a broad range of studio arts and more theoretical studies. The department offers studio courses in areas that include painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, design, film, video, animation, and photography. VES also offers lecture courses and seminars in film history and theory, studies of the built and natural environment, design and urbanism, and contemporary arts.

For undergraduates, the department provides students in a liberal arts college with an opportunity to gain an understanding of the structure and meaning of the visual arts through both study and practice in diverse areas. The department is committed to an integrated study of artistic practice, visual culture, and the critical study of the image. Our faculty of practitioners, critics, and theorists works with students to develop both formal skills and a sophisticated understanding of the roles played by technical ability and individual invention in the creation of art. Visiting artists join the resident faculty in exploring current issues in contemporary art in the context of the department's course offerings, and in exhibits and public lectures scheduled to take place throughout the year. If you are an undergraduate interested in talking with someone in VES about specific courses or faculty or possibly concentrating, contact Paula Soares, Manager of Academic Programs (soares [at] fas.harvard.edu, 617-496-4469). Additionally, you can speak with the Director of Undergraduate Studies Ruth Lingford (lingford [at] fas.harvard.edu, 617-388-1973). For graduate students, the department offers a Ph.D. in Film and Visual Studies. The aim of that program is to prepare the next generation of innovative scholars in the field in a unique environment that combines theory and practice with access to the unparalleled resources of Harvard University. The department also offers a secondary field for graduate students in the area of Film and Visual Studies. The program is open to any student enrolled in a PhD program in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, with the permission of the director of graduate studies of his or her home department, and of the director of graduate studies of film and visual studies in VES. Graduate students interested in speaking with someone about the Ph.D. or the secondary field should contact Emily Amendola, Graduate Coordinator (amendola [at] fas.harvard.edu, 617-495-9720) or Professor David Rodowick, the Director of Graduate Studies. VES is located in the landmark Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the only Le Corbusier building in the United States; courses are held in the Carpenter Center, in Sever Hall, and in our studios on Linden Street. Unlike the buildings of Harvard Yard and even those of Corbusiers earlier works, the C arpenter Center takes on a less than traditional approach to the design and organization of the interior spaces. Rather the Carpenter Center is a mix of Corbusiers earlier w orks with the typical beton-brut concrete, angled brise soleils that were used in Chandigarh, and ondulatoires [narrow windows] found in La Tourette were implemented into the centers facade system. From first glance, the Carpenter Center appears to be an inverted version of Villa Savoye embodying the Five Points of Architecture on the exterior of the building rather than within like Villa Savoye Similar to Villa Savoye, Corbusier highlights an architectural promenade that runs through the center of the building that connects the interior studios, galleries, and screening rooms to the public spaces within the building, as well as to the campus. Walking along the centralized ramp, there is a slow ascent through the buildings levels that has a degree of reveal allowing the passerby to peer into the spaces through the separation between the floor plates and the ramp. Within the Carpenter Center, Corbusier maintains large open floor plates supported by his iconic pilotis, which allow for students to have open studio environments, in addition to allowing for more flexible configurations when showcasing students work, or holding film screenings. However, as with some of his earlier projects where Corbusier imposes curvilinear wall sections to define circulation or the space itself, Corbusier uses the curvilinear wall system to define the interior volumes boundary as a way in which to accentuate the architectural promenade thro ughout the building, as well as seamlessly linking the interior spaces through a cyclical spatial organization. Le Corbusiers Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is an intensification of his earlier projects that not only incorporate a rchitectural elements from previous projects, but possibly with the encouragement of Fuentes and Sert seems to advance Corbusiers architectural language by testing its limits as to what it could become, rather than just merely accepting its prior successes. The Carpenter Center exemplifies that push and advancement in Corbusiers work that would influence the modernist aesthetic and future styles.